


The Crown Burns Hot

by drneroisgod



Category: H.I.V.E. Series - Mark Walden
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Blood and Violence, F/M, It's a little dark, Murder, So just be aware, Song Lyrics, Song: Candle Queen, Songfic, like it isn't graphic, personally i would probably rate this like pg-16
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:13:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27020296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drneroisgod/pseuds/drneroisgod
Summary: Rated M just to be on the safe side. This is an origin story for the Contessa—her early years, how she got her foot in the door, and the people she stepped on to get there.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	The Crown Burns Hot

**Author's Note:**

> Decided to take Fantober 2020 in a different direction and do a songfic for the "music/dancing" prompt! 
> 
> As I mention in the tags, the song for this fic is "Candle Queen" by Ghost and Pals (with my apologies to them for borrowing the lyrics—everything bold and aligned to the right is their words.) If you haven't listened to the song, definitely do! I might recommend listening after you read, because I think the style might be a little surprising!
> 
> Anyways, this is not an explicit fic but it does get a little dark. CW for implied rape, torture (?), and violence. IDK.

She was all red lipstick and bloody noses, laughing loudly in a dusky spotlight of her own making. She was not afraid to dance by herself, and yet was never short of partners. She caught smiles like roses and kissed anyone who asked—and when she was the one asking, they never said no.

They said she was a witch. She liked that very much. 

**Ever since she was a child**

**She always knew how to get her way**

**Just act a little bit wild**

**And someone will surely come to play**

She walked into the embassy ball and snapped like a mousetrap. She was wanted. She was desired. And, oh, sweetest of all, she was _envied_.

“Where did you get that dress?” asked Giorgia.

Bianca gasped. “Your hair! You must give me the name of your stylist.”

“I wish I looked like you,” Viola whispered, so softly that she almost went unheard. 

Maria smiled sympathetically at each and every supplicant who came to worship at her altar. Her mother had promised her that one day she would be admired. In the cold nights before bed, her nonna had brushed her thick, black hair smooth as milk, and swore that one day she would be loved like no other. She knew what kind of woman she was. 

The string quartet tempted the ambassadors and nobility to the floor. Maria watched and weighed their cuff links and earrings. She was looking for wealth, but it wasn’t what she wanted. 

Poor, doe-eyed Viola ambled past, searching for her ambassador husband or a friend in the crowd. She spotted Maria. Maria spotted Viola’s necklace. 

“Why, that looks like diamond,” Maria said, offering Viola her most eager attention.

“It is,” Viola confirmed, blushing.

Maria smiled, first with the verbena, and then the lemon wedge. _“Give it to me,”_ she ordered.

Viola did not hesitate, and neither did Maria. Affixed with her new constellation, she turned back to the ballroom and set her sights. She knew how to play coy. When she snagged his eye, she did not look away.

“Why, Conte, please. Let me introduce myself.”

**It's a truth she took to heart**

**But humility and patience didn't come with age**

**She's born to play this part**

**A diva's always center stage**

Maria wanted him, and Maria was in the habit of getting what she wanted. 

He delighted in satisfying her, making her the mistress of his estate and his advisor in his political career. She read him the newspaper over breakfast. He gave her the run of his ledgers. Where there were dinners to host, where there were meetings to attend, where there were ballots to be cast, Maria was his hand and his heart. He told the reporters he loved her. He told them she was a genius. She basked in his career even as it tightened like a noose around his neck.

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” he moaned, his head falling in his hands. “I’m not built for this. Maria. It cannot continue.”

Maria watched him from their bed, peeling back the skin of an orange slice. 

“You have to, my love,” she told him.

“No. I won’t. I can’t!”

“ _You will continue,”_ she ordered. “ _And you will enjoy it.”_

A bitter smile lit his face. “You always know what to say, Maria.” 

She did not see, then, that he hated her. She bit the fruit of her orange, letting the juices, warm and sticky, trail down her neck.

“Come to bed, my love,” she beckoned.

He delighted in satisfying her and she, Maria, was never satisfied.

“I said, _come to bed.”_

**Addicted to adrenaline**

**And always looking for attention**

**Thought to be so genuine**

**When she's suddenly met with apprehension**

She returned to find his closet stripped and her safe empty. She still had the estate. The garden and the orange trees would grow again in spring. Her newspapers were stacked neatly on the dining room table. But he was gone, and with him his position, his name, his title. 

So much for the sticky kisses.

Her men were loyal to her. “Find him,” she growled. “Alive.”

She ascended to the privacy of her room. The bastard! She tore away her layers of mink and velvet, tossing them with her bitterness onto the floorboards. _He loved her, he loved her, he loved her._ She would say it until she made him believe it. She would say it until he belonged to her again.

Yes, it was a lie, but it was citrus sweet and bearing fruit.

“I will find him,” she whispered to herself, resting her hand on the ripe curve of her stomach. “I must.”

Maria knew it would be a girl: even now, she could sense the gift as distinctly as she could feel her daughter shimmy and kick. She would bear a woman in her own likeness—strong and beautiful and cruel as sunlight. Another witch with a wine glass in her hand; another voice in their family’s choir. Maria pressed firmly against the movement in her belly. The gift was but a small spark in the darkness, but it was there. And he—he would not abandon them as it grew.

“He will love you, my dear,” Maria promised. “He will love you as he loves me, and more.”

**The fighting has begun**

**And she'd do anything to get ahead**

**Like using people as ladder rungs**

**And sweeping eggshells under the bed**

Her life was one of teething toys and terrorism, ABC’s and assault rifles. Clinking glasses with the military brass in the mornings, she did what she did best and bewitched them all. She let her lips linger where they were wanted. Her whispers twisted like vines through the ranks. Every officer had a handkerchief she’d let fall stowed away in the false bottoms of their desks. And if not their desks, then their safes. And if not their safes, their safe deposit boxes. Conveniently, none noticed the tracking devices embroidered into the floral edging. 

Maria swept into her home laden with her latest prizes: a secret ledger and correspondence between two officers that suggested treason and just a bit more.

“Mama!” Olivia sprang into the room, flitting on unsteady baby feet and crashing into her mother’s legs. She smiled her baby smile. Maria could never resist.

“Hello, my sweet,” she said, gathering her daughter in her arms. “What have we been up to today?”

Olivia told her mother many things, all of which were in a language of her own design, but Maria listened intently even so.

“Why that’s fine, just fine,” Maria reflected. “Tell me, my love, where is your daddy at? Do you know?”

They walked from room to room, peering inside. “Is he in here?” Maria asked as they walked from room to room. “No, he’s not in here!”

They found him in the nursery, staring at his knees. His eyes were bloodshot, though Maria doubted if he’d been drinking. 

“Papa,” Olivia babbled, plunging out of Maria’s hands and diving for her father. He took her in his arms and held her. 

“How was your day?” he asked, his voice wry and uncaring. Maria ignored his tone.

“I believe I see my plan coming together,” she said. “When I strike the general won’t know what hit him.”

He kept his eyes on the baby, snuggling close the only thing he still loved. Maria allowed this: it made things easier. 

“I will need you on the 25th,” she informed him. “There is a function we are expected to attend.”

“And what will happen there, Maria?” he asked, and his laugh was funny as murder. “Will you lead the general to a closet while I am friendly to the young ladies? Will I tell stories about Olivia while you whisper things in his ear? You will tell him to stop breathing and rejoin me, simple as that?”

“The difference between you and I is that I understand power,” Maria said coldly. “And I am not afraid of taking what I want.”

“Take and take and take and take,” he said, his singsong voice encouraging Olivia to try a tune of her own. “There was once a time you wanted me.”

“It wasn’t enough,” Maria said simply.

He looked at her and she felt nothing. He turned back to the baby. “To think you were this way once, too.”

**She just can't help but be this way**

**She lost her true self long ago**

**Now all her friends have been pushed away**

**Because a caricature is all they know**

They heard him screaming through the telephone so she made her voice smile to compensate.

“Don’t mind my husband,” she said cheerfully. “He’s listening to the football game over the radio.”

She slammed down the phone and she took to the stairs, heels clicking against the marble. She pulled the key from her pocket. He screamed nearly all the time, now. A few weeks previously, he ran out of words. Her mother warned her this could happen. Maria greeted her husband’s tears with a placid smile. 

“Now, now,” she chided. “You’ll wake the baby.”

He whined like a dog, or a general with three bullet holes in his groin, but he seemed calm. She offered him water, and he drank. 

“ _Go to sleep,”_ she whispered, and he closed his eyes. That’s the best she could do. 

In his sleep, he moaned, “Devil, devil, devil.”

“That’s nice dear,” she said, and closed the door tight behind her before locking it. He was almost at the end of his usefulness. Why did she bother to keep him around? Sentiment, she supposed. It was a curse.

She slept peacefully until the screaming began again. She sighed, pulling on her robe and padding up the stairs. Perhaps she’d make him do some exercises to release some of that nervous energy. 

At the top of the stairs, the door hung open. Wailing echoed from down the hall. 

Her breath caught in her throat. “The baby.”

She ran as fast as her feet would carry her, back down to her own room and through to the nursery. He was there, Olivia curled in his arms, his mouth pressed to her forehead. 

“ _Give her to me,_ ” Maria ordered, but his mind was gone. She’d used the voice too many times and he had nothing else to give her. He was sucked dry. A lemon rind in the sun, that was all. A memory. 

And he was holding her daughter. 

"Give her to me,” Maria said gently, drawing him close. “Let’s put her to sleep.”

“Love,” he said.

“I know, dear,” she said. Together they set the baby in her crib. She let him watch for a few more seconds—whatever else she could say for him, she knew that he loved Olivia. He was still looking at the baby when she slid the knife into his neck. “She loves you very much, too.”

**Toddler's cries that grow louder and louder**

**Everyone rushing to disavow her**

**All alone in a black and white scene**

**The one and only candle queen**

No one spoke to her after the funeral. The newspapers published reports—unsolved murder here, grieving widow there, and Maria let them take her story and spin it. She began wearing black. In church, she lit a candle and crossed herself, keeping her neck straight and her eyes forward as she walked through the pews, and those who watched her, they crossed themselves, too. 

“Anything we can do to help,” they murmured at the funeral. “Anything at all.”

No visits. No flowers sent to her home. Her constant companion was the camera’s flash—but that was all she needed to ensure her rise from the ashes. She walked in her garden when she needed to think. She needed to grieve; that is, to bide her time until she could get back in the game and in the thrill of the chase. Power. Soon and very soon she’d have it again. Soon and very soon, she’d make her biggest bid yet.

It was never enough and yet, she craved dissatisfaction. She loved to be the one wanting more.

She plucked an orange from the tree for Olivia and set it in her lap for later. 

“There was once a time you wanted me,” he had accused her, as though theirs was a love lost long ago.

It wasn’t that she didn’t love him, really. She did, much as she had loved him on their wedding day and every day since. The reason he died was that he could not live with the thought of being unsatisfying.

That, and she had, perhaps, overused her gift on him.

What she wouldn’t give for a cigarette. She walked towards the house, orange in hand. Inside, Olivia was laughing, just like her father.

**Hurt by the flames that burn higher and higher**

**Clutching a broken crown of fire**

**All alone in the final scene**

**The one and only candle queen**

They said she was a witch. They were right. 

**What a pity, that candle queen**


End file.
